It is remarkable to think that Rory McIlroy ended his 11-year wait for a fifth major in April with the Northern Irishman seemingly going into the US Open this week in no form whatsoever.
In hindsight, everyone should have expected Rory McIlroy to take some time after winning The Masters. Completing the career grand slam was more than a decade in the making. And he must have had times when he doubted whether he would ever win at Augusta National.
Unfortunately, that release of pressure has not done the 36-year-old many favours on the course since. He has looked rusty for several weeks; culminating in McIlroy missing the cut at the RBC Canadian Open this past week.
Of course, there has been plenty of talk surrounding McIlroy’s driving in recent times. His driver failed when tested at the PGA Championship. And McIlroy admitted that he needed to fix his driving after shooting 78 on Friday at TPC Toronto.
One big concern for Rory McIlroy heading into the US Open
But perhaps the driver is not McIlroy’s biggest problem heading into the US Open at Oakmont.
Speaking on RickRunGood, Rick Gehman suggested that McIlroy losing 4.5 strokes to the field with his approach play in Canada was much more alarming.
“I am not as concerned, though I will tell you the concerns are growing. I was not as concerned with the way he drove it around Quail Hollow. He gained a stroke off the tee, I know he was dealing with a backup driver. The stuff I saw at the Canadian Open was bad, obviously. He loses nearly three strokes alone off the tee on Friday, one of the worst rounds of his career. The driver was bad. I can forgive the driver stuff. I know he’s going to be going through driver testing. He’s probably going to have hit 15, 20 different set combinations of drivers and shafts and everything before he even gets to Oakmont. I think he’ll have driver much better figured out,” he said.
“I do have concerns about the approach play. So now we’re on a three tournament stretch in which he has lost strokes on approach at the Truist, he lost strokes on approach at the PGA Championship, and he lost a ton of strokes at the Canadian Open. That is not a good trend.
“The other thing is you can get away with that, you can get away with a small loss on approach – it’s not ideal – at the Truist, because it’s a smaller field and you drove it like Rory McIlroy drives it, and you putted like a maniac and you gained five strokes with the putter. You can cover up some of those issues. If you’re not going to be really good off the tee, and you’re not going to be really good on the green and you’re not going to be really good with the putter, you can not get away with this approach play. So there are growing concerns there.”
Where Rory McIlroy’s approach play ranks on the PGA Tour in 2025
It is remarkable just how ordinary McIlroy’s approach statistics are this season. He is now outside the top 70 on the PGA Tour for strokes gained approach this year.
Given that he is also outside the top 50 for strokes gained around the green, it is hard to see him thriving at a golf course which is as demanding as Oakmont.
No player has ever won a US Open at Oakmont with a score of better than five under par, while Angel Cabrera triumphed in 2007 on five over par. So it is going to be about limiting mistakes.
At the moment, McIlroy does not appear to be in a place where he is going to be able to limit mistakes to the kind of level where he can compete with Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau.
It certainly feels a long time ago now that he was winning three of the biggest events on the calendar.
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